Game and Fish landowner-license rewrite draws sharp debate; joint committee deadlocks on letter

Summary

Wyoming Game and Fish proposed tightening landowner-license eligibility — raising acreage and days-of-use minimums and adding ownership thresholds — prompting heated testimony from landowners, sporting groups and legislators. A motion by the ag committee to send a letter opposing those changes tied the vote and failed.

Wyoming Game and Fish proposed changes to the state's long-standing landowner-license program sparked hours of testimony, technical briefing and sharp disagreements at a June 11 joint Agriculture committee meeting.

Clayton Caldwell of the Legislative Service Office summarized the separate classes of complimentary and landowner tags and historical issuance totals. Director Angie Bruce and Dan Smith, chief of wildlife for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, told the committee the commission had requested public input after the department and a governor-appointed wildlife task force examined whether the landowner program's eligibility rules remain appropriate in the face of changing land ownership patterns and shifts in big-game populations.

The department proposed several substantive changes in commission regulation (chapter 44, section 8) for public comment: - Increase minimum qualifying acreage from 160 contiguous acres to either 160 contiguous acres of cultivated land or a minimum of 640 contiguous acres of range land; the proposed text would still allow…

Game and Fish landowner-license rewrite draws sharp debate; joint committee deadlocks on letter

Summary

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